We ‘Support’ the Troops by Burdening Them More

Posted on Dec 2, 2009

Today’s state of affairs probably would not be much different if 58,000 Americans had not died in the Vietnam War. It is a bitter and sobering thought that so many thousands of U.S. military personnel perished for so little benefit to the nation that foolishly sent them into what amounted to a civil war.

The prime architect of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, would later admit that Washington’s actions had been “wrong, terribly wrong.” The one-time secretary of defense went to his grave this year burdened with sorrow for his role in the conflict.

Because of audiotapes now made public, we know of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s anguish over sending more troops to Vietnam, an anguish he concealed from the nation he led. Before he ordered a military buildup, he told national security adviser McGeorge Bundy in 1964: “The more I think about this, I don’t know what in the hell. ... Looks to me like we’re getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. ... I don’t think it’s worth fighting for.” But the United States did fight the war, however worthless it might have been, and as a result the presidency of a man who envisioned a Great Society fell in shards.

Johnson had been goaded toward escalation by influential advisers including Bundy. William Pfaff, in his column that appeared Nov. 24 on Truthdig, quotes from the recently published and aptly titled “Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam,” by Gordon M. Goldstein. Pfaff tells of a 1967 memo from Bundy to Johnson saying, “The fact that South Vietnam has not been lost, and is not going to be lost, is a fact of truly massive importance in the history of Asia, the Pacific and the United States.” Pfaff then writes: “Looking back at the memo, nearly 30 years after he had written it in triumph, he [McGeorge Bundy] noted on it, for Goldstein to read and quote, ‘McGB all wrong.’ ”

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All wrong. Surely one of the strongest and most compact self-condemnations ever written by a former presidential lieutenant.

The U.S. public has overwhelmingly acknowledged that the country should not have gotten militarily involved in Vietnam. The Gallup Poll said: “ … [I]n retrospect, Americans feel it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. Three polls conducted from 1990 to 2000 found about seven in 10 Americans saying it was a mistake.”

The nation slipped into the Vietnam swamp bit by bit, under four presidents. None of those presidents—whatever their moral or political defects might have been—shipped soldiers to that Asian land to pursue a military campaign for gold or petroleum or territory. The stated goal was loftier and arguably less material: to save the world—or at least the United States—from communism.

As it turned out, communism was a cardboard tiger that not only couldn’t devour the planet but generally couldn’t even save itself. Today only Vietnam and four other nations are officially communist … and two of the five (Vietnam and China), at least when it comes to commercial expansion, look as though they were brought up by a money-hungry Uncle Sam rather than an anti-capitalist Papa Karl Marx.

An appalling portion of the United States’ young population was squandered in Vietnam because U.S. leaders had forgotten a fundamental rule of poker: You’ve got to know when to fold. Starting in 1962, more and more Americans were tossed into the pot each year as the troop level surged: 8,498 … 15,620 … 17,280 … 129,611 … 317,007 … 451,752 … 537,377. Ever bigger wagers were made in a futile attempt to save a bad bet. Even in 1971, after a couple of years of U.S. pullback, the American deployment remained at more than 200,000.

The mission in Vietnam was disastrously wrong-headed, and much American treasure and blood could have been spared if our leaders simply had had the political guts to say: “Enough. This is not working. Let’s go home.”

* * *

Soldier No. 2: ‘Numb and Withdrawn Upstairs’

The story of Peter Sinclair is poignantly laid out by staff writer Jia-Rui Chong in a Page 1 story in the Nov. 2 Los Angeles Times.

When Sinclair was 20, he enlisted in the Army and later was sent off to the Persian Gulf War. Afterward, he became an L.A. cop and a member of the Army Reserve. In the first year of the Iraq war, he was back in the regular Army.

Chong writes:

Pete’s unit was quickly caught up in insurgent attacks. His base at Al Taqaddum, about 45 miles west of Baghdad, was shelled as often as 56 times an hour, according to a sergeant stationed there. In Balad, north of the capital, a rocket explosion threw Pete, who was asleep, from his cot onto the floor.

“I’m happy just to be alive today,” he wrote home. …

… His injuries [back injuries suffered in the Army and on police duty] were exacerbated by the weight of his body armor and the constant jostling in Humvees. Sometimes he experienced spasms in his lower back so severe he could not walk. Sometimes it hurt so bad he had trouble speaking.

Painkillers, muscle relaxers, ibuprofen and Valium offered relief, but Pete struggled with the realities of war. He saw a Marine torn apart by a rocket. He came across mutilated bodies hanging from a bridge. Then there was a ride through Baghdad in the fall of 2004. Soldiers had been handing out candy to children to celebrate the opening of a sewage treatment plant when a bomb went off. More than 40 people, mostly children, died; dismembered bodies littered the street. Pete’s convoy rolled through the aftermath.

Two weeks later, he e-mailed his sister about his nightmares: standing in city streets surrounded by body parts and blood.

I should have said he pushed America further into a
debtor’s abyss from which there is no escape. By
giving the head FED criminal, Bernanke, carte
blanche, to send $trillions to the CABAL in Europe,
with arrogance, impunity, and no accountability.
As well as $trillions more for the banksters bailouts who then used our money to screw Main Street even more.
And let’s not forget that Obama, like Calley, is just
following orders. The big difference is that when he
leaves office, he will be a multimillionaire &
responsible for more deaths than Calley. If we
counted the PTSD
victims & physically disabled as well as the record
number of suicides & destroyed families, his legacy
will be even more horrendous.
And finally,as far as signing up,I may be an “ignorant fool”, but I’m not crazy.

By AuntBec, December 4 at 3:30 pm #
Obama did not bankrupt this country (liecatcher), you
ignorant fool - it was bankrupted, fiscally and
morally, by the Texas Village Idiot and his henchmen
and women. Where the hell were you these past eight
years?
Supporting our troops in the U.S. is nothing more
than a stupid fucking ribbon or bumber sticker. I
know, why don’t you sign up?

Oh! And by the way, a close friend who’s only son, is being mobilized for the surge, the father of eight, is willingly going to Afghanistan.
How in the hell, does this president justify any more troops in a losing war? How does he explain to those children, that their father, who has already served more than his time, has to go halfway around the world to fight a war that is at best innocuous and at worst criminal?
No, President Obama will not be receiving my vote for the presidency next election cycle, and neither will the ‘stand up’ Democrats who have given their all for the cause. It is high time that a third party, a viable third party champion the cause of peace and prosperity for the little person in this world. Americans have for too long been complacent and willing to let the elite run the show, NO MORE!
We, the people cannot allow this miscarriage of justice to continue. We are faced with the real prospect of becoming another Russia, a country which fell into anarchy because the leaders felt that it was necessary to fight a losing war, with a country that historically and recently fought wars that they have won because they are unwinnable by the country trying to take over them.
Why, oh why, did the ‘progressive and peaceful’ president, one which campaigned on the promise of talking instead of fighting, choose to enter a conflict that cannot be won and will not be won, because they are backing a cabal of drug-running, corrupt, and scamming individuals?
President Obama, this is your only term! You will not be president another term. This I will guarantee, with all my heart and soul. YOU have broken every promise made during the campaign and are now known as a person of the elite, who cannot and will not stand up to the power brokers, not for the people who elected you president but the moneyed elite who stepped in afterwards and beguiled you with visions of power and prestige. Well you have neither, power nor prestige among the people who welcomed a true breath of fresh air, Sir you are no John F. Kennedy, and you will never be.

AuntBec,
Obama’s appointee Timmy Geitner is busy rationalizing and institutionalizing into law the 600 trillion dollar derivatives/market manipulation gambling casino for his bankster buddies. Obama’s Goldman Sachs appointees are fixing absolutely f***ing nothing except for their continued ability to exploit the markets and cement there financial profiteering off the backs of the working class and the small investor. Notice there is no serious study of the value of the wonderful “financial innovations” that Timmy lauds versus the too big to fail risk they entail. They have payed off our populist “hero” Obama and are solidifying the whole ball of wax. The proof will be that this bankster gambling casino will not diminish in size after Timmy’s faked regulatory “reform”. The concept that our lobbyist ridden Congress could produce a loophole free regulatory structure that could contain these Banksters is nothing but laughable. What is key is that you will not see the exploitive $600,000,000,000,000 casino decrease. That is little Timmy’s job. Let me know if want to place a “derivative” side bet on my contention. I will bet that in 5 years this casino will either increase in size or blow up in everyone’s face.

For those out there with any sense remember the cry from the 60s “HELL NO,WE WON’T go”. For the rest if the facts of history don’t convince you or you actually believe the crap coming from our “Leaders”, you know, “the best and brightest”, then go on and build the empire! But please don’t complain upon return that you were mislead or didn’t have a choice.

Hey Wayne, not only his he NOT hiding the caskets of our returning troops, he is actually going out to see them himself. Something his little predecessor wouldn’t have done even if they held his mother hostage.

Obama did not bankrupt this country (liecatcher), you ignorant fool - it was bankrupted, fiscally and morally, by the Texas Village Idiot and his henchmen and women. Where the hell were you these past eight years?
Supporting our troops in the U.S. is nothing more than a stupid fucking ribbon or bumber sticker. I know, why don’t you sign up?

Soldier 1 and Soldier 2. Hmmmm. Why are they over there? Maybe so we don’t have another massive attack by insane muslims? So their moms and dads, sisters and brothers won’t be blown up at Walmart? We should send all those brave ACORN thugs over there. Let those slugs see real men in action. (But can they fight or are they just bullies?)

9/11 was a false flag operation meant to get us
into these very profitable fiascos. The Israeli
lobby has also exerted enormous pressure.
It seems that every Chief Exec from Ford to
Carter, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton, and now
44 are held hostage to the long-range schemes
of the military-industrial cabal and the shadowy
club of international power brokers who
hatched and direct this sad opera buffa.

9/11/01 three airplanes slammed into three buildings, 2 in New York and 1 in D.C.
An act of terror not much different from other strategic surprise attacks here and there, now and then. Several thousand were killed; enormous piles of rubble remained smoking.
Within minutes, officials were calling for revenge – long before there was any time to consider what the best answer might be. Only that primitive upsurge of rage – an eye for an eye – or more.
So it was voted in by a lot of scared, angry people to send a vast army with vicious modern weaponry half way around the world to bomb the stony mountains of Afghanistan, without calculations of the dangers, the problems, the likely results, the possibilities of failure. Just revenge.
After a period of more or less inconsequential
attacking here and there, killing mostly people who had no power to resist and no idea what was afficting them, the story line was changed.
Iraq’s cruel, bragging, recalcitrant dictator had weapons of mass destruction – maybe, probably, oh yes, here’s “evidence”. So it’s “Shock and Awe” against one of the most ancient of civilized cities bombed day and night, and the country’s infrastructure ravaged, till a weird, pathetic, dirty, unshaven villain was dragged from a hole in the ground and hanged.
But that was not enough. The bombardments, the imprisonments, the tortures, the rage, the waste of lives and money continued for years. At last, when a partial “settlement” was made out of sheer loss of enthusiasm, the oil resources having been captured, the war was stopped by those who had started it and wanted to be finished with it without exactly losing it.
The arena moved back to Afghanistan where poverty, corruption, clan warfare, domination of religious fundamentalism was still hollowing out a country that had been ravaged several times in the long past, and once recently, and had no ability to resist either interior mismanagement or exterior attack. More waste of life and money. More pain.
More destruction – this time with the vague notion of “nation building” in the minds of the attackers. “Getting rid of” this and “changing” that, and “modernizing” it whether its wanted those changes or not, and at what cost?
Eight years later, the new American President-Who-Should-Know-Better is still ordering in tens of thousands more soldiers and trillions more weapons and supplies – in spite of continuing evidence of error and lack of success – not to say failure. More money is to be made, more territory is to be “secured.”
But still the same old death awaits thousands more innocents, young and old, and the same old smell of blood and money and insane brutality fouls the air both at home and abroad.
Still the mountains do not say “No!” and the valleys do not open up and swallow the invaders.
Still the dust rises – and settles – and all we can find to do is to sneeze and complain of our allergies.

Looks like Mr. Obama is finally going to earn that Nobel Prize of his. In one of the more devious moves in recent presidential history, the big O has sent out nearly the entire US army to lamely wander the deserts in Afghanistan.

“The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything… That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about.”
(Noam Chomsky)

“To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That’s just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.”
(Michael Parenti)

“[American leaders] are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It’s not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It’s that they just don’t care ... the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren’t happening to them or people close to them ... then they just don’t care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home - the ones who make it back alive - with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things.”
(William Blum)

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
(Theodore Roosevelt)

“It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms.”
(John Stockwell, former CIA official and author)

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
(George Orwell)

“U.S. leaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a “favorable climate of investment” everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also ... by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes.”
(Edward Herman, political economist and author)

What about the WWII firebombing of Tokyo and other cities, in addition to the use of the atom bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki?..Actions taken against a nation isolated and utterly defeated…actions that were hailed as heroic by the people who ordered them including that famous progressive Harry Truman.

I can only add my small voice to Mr. Caswell’s excellent article. My father was a victim of WW 2, not on the battle field but later, through suicide. He had seen too much and was unable to reconcile his experiences with life back home. The demons were too great.

Politicians are so cynical about those who carry the ultimate burden of their stupid decisions. They only see strategic issues and necessary actions but the soldier on the ground sees the death and carnage first hand. They carry the pain and mental anguish which can never be cured.

Obama has made the same mistake as his predecessors. He has made a political decision instead of an intelligent one. After all these meetings, he did exactly what he promised to do 18 months ago. Facts never entered his calculations. It was strictly about his ratings and re-election prospects. It was Rahm whispering in his ear (just like Rove with Bush) “You don’t want to be seen as soft ... hit them hard!” Of course, he will fail because, exactly like Vietnam, the enemy is not some external agent but a domestic insurrection against a foreign invader ... us. If we put in more troops they will just recruit more warriors and the fighting will get worse. In 18 months we will not be able to retreat ... and the generals will just request more soldiers. That is their job, unfortunately. They are warriors, trained to kill.

It will be interesting to see what happens in July of 2011. I suspect there will be another “change in strategy” and more troops will be needed. What will Obama do then?

Wars are a fascists best & fastest means to achieve
world domination. Wars are a win win for the Military
Industrial Conspiracy, Medical Insurance Pharmaceutical
Industrial Conspiracy, & the banksters who finance both
sides of every conflict. Outsourcing America’s
manufacturing & jobs yields high unemployment & easier
recruiting to provide fodder for the perpetual wars.